ooked at him
wide-eyed. He finished his cocktail and poured another. In the
snooper screen, what looked like an indignation meeting was making
uproar in the village plaza. Gofredo cut the volume of the speaker
even lower.

"That would explain a lot of things," Meillard said slowly. "How
hard it was for them to realize that we didn't understand when they
talked to us. A punch in the nose feels the same to anybody. They
thought they were giving us bodily feelings. They didn't know we
were insensible to them."

"But they do ... they do have a language," Lillian faltered.
"They talk."

"Not the way we understand it. If they want to say, 'Me,' it's
_tickle-pinch-rub_, even if it sounds like _fwoonk_ to us, when it
doesn't sound like _pwink_ or _tweelt_ or _kroosh_. The tactile
sensations, to a Svant, feel no more different than a massage by
four different hands. Analogous to a word pronounced by four
different voices, to us. They'll have a code for expressing meanings
in tactile sensation, just as we have a code for expressing meanings
in audible sound."

"Except that when a Svant tells another, 'I am happy,' or 'I have a
stomach-ache,' he makes the other one feel that way too," Anna said.
"That would carry an awful lot more conviction. I don't imagine
symptom-swapping is popular among Svants. Karl! You were nearly
right, at that. This isn't telepathy, but it's a lot like it."

"So it is," Dorver, who had been mourning his departed telepathy
theory, said brightly. "And look how it explains their society.
Peaceful, everybody in quick agreement--" He looked at the screen
and gulped. The Lord Mayor and his party had formed one clump, and
the opposition was grouped at the other side of the plaza; they were
screaming in unison at each other. "They make their decisions by
endurance; the party that can resist the feelings of the other
longest converts their opponents."

"Pure democracy," Gofredo declared. "Rule by the party that can
make the most noise."

"And I'll bet that when they're sick, they go around chanting,
'I am well; I feel just fine!'" Anna said. "Autosuggestion would
really work, here. Think of the feedback, too. One Svant has a feeling.
He verbalizes it, and the sound of his own voice re-enforces it in him.
It is induced in his hearers, and they verbalize it, re-enforcing it
in themselves and in him. This could go on and on."

"Yes. It has. Look at their technology." He felt more comfortable,
now he was